Jakarta / AFP Beijing insisted on Monday a Chinese boat detained close to Indonesian islands had been fishing legally, in a fresh flare-up of tensions between the countries in the South China Sea. The Indonesian navy seized the Chinese boat in waters near the Natuna Islands on Friday for allegedly fishing illegally, the military said. The boat was towed ...

  Manila /AFP Rodrigo Duterte snubbed his proclamation as the next Philippine president on Monday, reinforcing his image as a maverick outsider intent on challenging the nation’s political establishment. A joint session of the House of Representatives and the Senate in Manila endorsed the official count of this month’s election, which saw the trash-talking politician who revels in threats to ...

WASHINGTON Maybe the middle class isn’t quite so stressed any more. We in the media are rightly criticized for a pessimistic bias. We cover the unfortunate, the grim and the tragic. News is what people don’t know and, as often as not, is sad or shocking. Our prism on the world distorts reality, because reality is often predictable and reassuring ...